And each of
the types warned against are deficient in one or more of these areas.

Finally, not too many language partners! The best language partners are
people you naturally want to spend time with. Don't see someone once a
week for three hours if you wouldn't normally want to see them that often for that
long. Language partnership should be fun, not yet another homework chore!

A classic trap for someone learning another language by immersion is to grasp the "native tongue" lifeline that a language partner can represent (A chance to talk in your native tounge as homework! What's not to love?!) and spend less time on "real" homework, like working with your voice recorder (You're not doing this?! You're missing an important trick), working on your written language exercises, or simply getting out into the world and using your new langauge with native speakers who don't speak your mother tongue.